


Diet Soda

by MaryPSue



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-18 02:53:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1412263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's amazing how the tiniest things can make the biggest difference.</p><p>Take, for example, one Vlad Masters. He’d just love to tell you all about how one tiny little thing, a Proto-Portal not much bigger than your average toaster, when combined with his former best friend’s ineptitude, stripped him of friends, future, four years of his life, and the woman he loved. But the truth is, the portal almost pales in significance next to a much smaller, much more ordinary object, that no one not in possession of all of the facts could ever point a finger to as being the primary determiner of Vlad’s eventual fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diet Soda

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU I began nearly two years ago. It's unlikely that I'll ever finish it, but as I wrote a not-insignificant amount of it and because I think it's pretty decent, I wanted to put it somewhere where people who might be interested could read it. I may someday return to it, but it looks unlikely.

As famous last words go, “BOGUS!” is not one of the top ten. It doesn’t even make the top hundred. This is partly because it’s an incredibly lame thing to have recorded as one’s final utterance in this vale of tears, and partly because, in this case at least, it isn’t technically a _last_ word at all.

Of course, Vlad doesn’t know that at the time. All he knows is that the portal’s exploded, he’s very probably going to die without ever telling Maddie he loves her, and his last words suck.

If you’d asked him, a few minutes ago, if the Proto-Portal was dangerous, he’d probably have laughed and assured you that the only thing the Portal might be dangerous to is Jack Fenton’s seemingly irrepressible good spirits when it inevitably fails to work. But that was before Jack turned it on. Now it feels like he’s been hit by a truck, possibly one that was carrying liquid nitrogen, and as the solid blast of spectral energy tears through Vlad and freezes him to the core, all he can think is _I’m going to die_.

_No._

_I’m dying._

He can barely hear Jack’s shout of “V-Man!”, thin and somehow far away even though Vlad knows they’re both in the same tiny basement lab. Maddie’s scream is equally distant, and even through the numbing cold, he feels a flicker of warmth at the sound of her voice, his heart pounding at the thought that she cares enough about him to be so terrified. Maybe she’ll break down at his funeral and confess that she was madly in love with him all along. The thought is morbid, but at this point it looks like the best he can hope for.

_I don’t want to die, I’m too young to die, I’ve got too much to do, I don’t want to dieeeee_

And then, as suddenly as it began, it stops. There’s still a chill clinging to his spine, but the feeling that thousands of icicles are being pounded through his every cell has finally stopped. And somehow, it’s a little anticlimactic. He’s certain he was dying, knows it on some level beyond mere observation of the facts, can feel it, as the old cliché says, in his bones. And yet, he’s still on his feet, and that’s still the lab around him, and there’s Jack and Maddie, both looking at him as...if…

…as if they’ve just seen a –

Thankfully, that’s when he passes out.

 

 

There are many, many things that one wouldn’t want to hear immediately on waking from total, blissful unconsciousness. “Right, now do the other kneecap,” is probably one of them, as is, “Do any of you know how long it takes for concrete to set?” “Did anyone call 911?” is pretty bad as well, although then you have some clue that the future will likely not contain broken kneecaps or large amounts of chickenwire and several fathoms of water, and even though it’s probably going to contain enormous amounts of pain, there is also a high possibility of cute nurses.

For Vlad Masters, hearing the love of his life begin to say, “I think he’s awa-”, only to be instantly interrupted by his best friend’s overexuberant shout of “VLADDY!” are the worst imaginable sounds to wake up to, mostly because they promise a bone-crushing bear hug from Jack.

The hug is more excruciating than he expected. Apparently, Vlad is still more than a little sore from the portal incident, and Jack was seriously worried about his friend. It’s nearly a full minute before Vlad can get a breath, and even then it’s only because Maddie – _thank you, there is a God_ – says, “Jack, I think you’re choking him.”

Jack drops Vlad – literally, as Vlad hits the bed – _wait a second, bed?_ – with a thump and a jolt that makes him grind his teeth in pain, and takes a step back, letting Vlad see that they’re back in his dorm room. _When -?_

“We were worried about you, V-Man!” Jack exclaims, and Vlad finds himself wondering, not for the first time, whether his friend ever turns down the volume. “Well, Maddie was worried,” Jack adds quickly, “but I knew you’d be fine. Takes more than a Proto-Portal to put the V-Man down, eh?” He punctuates this with an elbow to Vlad’s ribs, and Vlad tries unsuccessfully not to wince.

“What happened?” he asks, aware of how lame that must sound. Jack and Maddie exchange a look, and Vlad tries to ignore the sudden feeling that he’s just swallowed two tons of lead. “How bad is it?” He tries not to let the thought into his head, but it’s there already, grinning nastily and prodding him towards an unhappy realization.

“Well, you’re not dead,” Jack blurts, and Maddie shoots him a glare that even Jack Fenton can’t miss the meaning of. “And maybe I should just stop talking now and let Maddie tell you.”

Probably a phrase as ominous as, “Well, you’re not dead,” should have Vlad more worried, but he can’t bring himself to be too terrified, since Jack has just, though unwittingly, all but banished the nasty sneaking thought that was trying to bring itself to Vlad’s attention. If he’s not dead, then there’s no way he can be a –

“Actually, you were really lucky,” Maddie begins, biting her bottom lip slightly in a way that’s just totally adorable. “It looks like the only real damage was cosmetic…”

“Yeah, who knows what might have happened if Maddie hadn’t stopped me from pouring that diet soda into the ecto-filtrator!” Jack’s smile slips a few notches when he notices that neither of his friends are looking particularly pleased with him, and asks, “What?”

“Wait just one second. What do you mean, _the only real damage was cosmetic_?” Vlad demands, his brain having finally caught up to his ears.

“Well, you’re not missing any pieces, if that’s what you’re worried about!”

“Jack?” Maddie asks, in that sweet, patient voice that means she’s a few words away from becoming very nasty and impatient, and you had better watch where you tread. It says volumes about the seriousness of the situation that Jack actually notices.

“Um. Right. Letting Maddie talk.”

“I don’t really _care_ who talks! Would someone please just tell me _what happened to me_?”

Both Jack and Maddie flinch slightly at Vlad’s outburst. “Well,” Maddie begins, slowly, like she’s talking someone off the edge of a cliff, “the portal didn’t quite act the way we’d expected -”

“Right, right, and I got hit in the face when it _suddenly exploded outwards_.”

“Um, yes, and -” She’s speechless. That’s impossible. Maddie always has something to say, always something intelligent and thoughtful and _she’s_ speechless. This can’t be good.

She’s not looking at him, she’s – oh, she’s rummaging through her bag. When she straightens up, she’s holding a little black circular thing. She hands it to him, without a word.

Possibly no one has ever faced a handheld powder compact with such apprehension before.

The mirror isn’t really designed to give anyone a good look at themselves, so at first Vlad doesn’t see what has both Jack and Maddie so alarmed. It’s only by bits and pieces that he manages to put it together, and when he does, it seems entirely anticlimactic.

“All right, so it bleached my hair and now I look about forty years older. This is…” It’s not the terror he’d half expected, which is nothing short of a huge relief, but he’s not exactly jumping for joy over the unwanted results. Still, at least he’s not dead.

“Totally bogus?” Jack offers helpfully, and Vlad can’t suppress a shudder at the thought of how close that had been to being his last word, ever.

“Actually, that wasn’t what I was thinking at _all_.”

“Oh.” But it would take a lot more than that to subdue Jack Fenton for any length of time, and in the next instant he’s already recovered his usual energy. “You should’ve seen yourself right after we -”

“A-hmm?”

“Well, after _Maddie_ shut the portal off. I swear your eyes were glowing!”

“What?” Now that the scary part is over with, the world’s beginning to take on a more familiar shape again. Not to mention the fact that sheer relief is buoying Vlad up faster than a hot air balloon. “Jack, that’s impossible.”

“That’s what we thought,” Maddie says, and she’s starting to sound excited. “Theoretically, spectral energy shouldn’t have any real effect on something from our dimension. They just shouldn’t be able to interact. But apparently our theories were off base. We’ll have to do more research on the effects of spectral energy on physical objects, and living things especially. A _lot_ more research.” Her whole face lights up, the way it does whenever she’s talking about a new project or an interesting new development, and it makes her even more beautiful, if that’s possible.

“Well, I don’t want to be your test subject,” Vlad says quickly, and Maddie laughs. God, she’s got a wonderful laugh. “I think that once was more than enough.”

“If the portal had worked, we would have -” Jack starts, and Maddie sighs.

“If the portal had worked, we wouldn’t be sitting here with ideas for new experiments. And the results will help us design a new portal.”

“One that works?”

“That would be the idea, yes,” Vlad interjects, feeling a little bit left out. After all, he’s the one who was nearly killed by a blast of supposedly harmless spectral energy, right? Shouldn’t Maddie be talking to _him_ in that reassuring voice?

She’s nodding, what looks like it’s trying very hard to be a stern expression on her face. “But this time, Jack, let me check your calculations before you turn it all on.”

Nobody says anything. They just manage to meet each other’s eyes, and suddenly they’re all laughing, the kind of laughter that appears without warning and comes from somewhere deep down. It’s three in the morning laughter, drunken on sheer relief and released terror, the kind of laughter that appears unannounced, feeds on everyone around it until it borders on hysteria, and leaves you breathless and with aching sides. It comes out of nowhere, catching them all by surprise.

And Vlad, happy to let go of his worries for even just a little while, barely notices the chill still clinging to him.

 

 

“I’m sure we can get another grant.”

“But we put all that work into the portal, and now we don’t have anything to show for it, and -”

“We’ve still got all of our blueprints, and the _correct_ calculations, and I think we might have had trouble with it because we underestimated the effects of the – Jack, are you even listening?”

“Sorry, Maddie, but the last lab group left cookies behind.” Vlad watches his best friend try to brush the crumbs off his white lab coat. “You should know by now that nothing can keep Jack’s attention when cookies are involved.”

“Except fudge,” Jack agrees cheerfully. Then he frowns. “Actually, that’s a tough one. Cookies or fudge?”

“One of life’s great questions,” Maddie comments, with a smile to show that she doesn’t mean it nastily. Vlad doubts that she has a nasty bone in her body. She’s just so _perfect_ , and if he weren’t such a _coward_ and had just made a move instead of waiting for ‘the right opportunity’ –

“Well, if you made the cookies, then I’d pick the cookies,” Jack says, and returns to the plate of store-bought Oreos without so much as a second thought, not noticing how Maddie’s whole face lights up, the way it does whenever she’s talking about a new project or an interesting new development in their research. Or whenever Jack unthinkingly compliments her, like he’s just done now.

The way it never does for Vlad.

He’d have to be blind not to notice. No, more than just blind; he’d have to be _Jack_ , who never worries about anything and never _tries_ , just blithely assuming that everything will work out, one way or another. And the infuriating part is that things _do_ work out for him. The portal, which they built mostly on guesswork and a set of ‘calculations’ that might as well have been scribbled on a napkin from a local fast-food place at three in the morning after an unsuccessful night out for all the scientific thought and methodology that went into them, actually _worked_ , though admittedly not exactly the way it was supposed to. And Vlad has a sinking feeling that, no matter how brilliant Maddie is, no matter how good a team she and he might have made, the damn thing would never have done anything but sit there looking innocently useless if it hadn’t been Jack who’d actually built it. Everything’s effortless for Jack Fenton (well, except, apparently, for deciding what kind of sweets he likes best), everything comes easily, and nothing seems to shake him.

It’s one of the things that Vlad both admires and can’t stand about his best friend. But now that the woman Vlad loves is looking at Jack like a lost puppy, and Jack doesn’t even notice, that happy-go-lucky attitude is becoming less admirable and more intolerable. He doesn’t _think_ , doesn’t consider other people at all, just assumes that everyone else will share his enthusiasm for his crazy schemes and his ability to let others’ opinions just roll off his back – if he notices them at all. There’ve been a few occasions on which Vlad has doubted his friend is living in the same reality as everyone else.

This is one of them.

“We haven’t got any more money,” Vlad says, attempting to steer the conversation back onto their research and away from any hints of budding romance. Dammit, why couldn’t he have just gotten up the courage and _asked_ her? Why did he have to wait for ‘the right moment’? Why did he have to be _dramatic_ about it? “We can’t do any more work until we’ve got money for supplies and repairs – or maybe just a complete rebuild,” he adds, stealing a glance at the remains of the Proto-Portal. “And that won’t be happening anytime soon.”

Maddie makes a face at Jack, who is still munching obliviously on stale Oreos, and sighs. “Well, then we’ll just have to go straight back to the drawing board. It doesn’t cost anything to do theoretical work, or draw up blueprints for another portal.”

“You’re forgetting that the department banned us from doing any research or development related in any way, shape or form to the portal after Jack – after _we_ put several smoking holes in their nice basement lab,” Vlad gripes. He thought he’d covered his slip rather well, but the look Maddie gives him is made up of one hundred per cent _we will be discussing this later_. He’s sure she’d be an excellent mother – that look alone would terrify any child into obedience, let alone the talking-to they’d learn to expect.

For a moment, he lets himself entertain a thought of Maddie holding a baby, a boy with her big violet eyes and his dark hair, before reality slams back in. They’re sitting in the basement lab, there’s a huge scorch mark in the wall (with his head rather nicely silhouetted in white against it), Jack is snarfing down cookies, Maddie’s giving him a combination of worried- and death-glare, and he doesn’t even have dark hair anymore. Add another to the list of things which are never going to happen.

“I just meant that we might have some trouble getting anything past the approvals committee,” he says, mainly for something to fill the silence.

Jack brushes Oreo crumbs from his lab coat. “Why? They seemed pretty impressed last time.”

This time, the look Maddie gives Vlad is more sympathetic. “Well, yes, but that was because nobody had ever proposed anything like it before. And that was before it blew up in our faces – oh.” Her eyes go wide, and one hand flies up to cover her mouth. “Vlad, I am so sorry -”

“Don’t worry about it.” He laughs, but it sounds a little too forced, even to him. Really, it isn’t that big of a deal, but it stings that she doesn’t even think about him before she speaks, whereas if it were something awful that had happened to _Jack_ –

Who, conveniently, chooses that exact moment to look down at his watch. “Oh man, is that the time?” He jumps up, tosses off the lab coat. “Sorry guys, band practice.” And it might just be Vlad’s jealous imagination, but it seems like he turns to face Maddie and turns his back towards Vlad when he asks, “So I’ll meet you guys for lunch tomorrow?”

“Just like usual,” Maddie agrees, and if there’s a hint of weariness in her voice Jack doesn’t hear it.

“Great! See ya!” And just like that, he’s gone, disappearing out the door like a very amiable whirlwind. Any hope Vlad had of somehow escaping Maddie’s questioning disappears with him.

“All right. Now what was _that_ all about?”

“What was what all about? I don’t have any idea what you -”

“Really, Vlad?” She rubs her temples. “Did you think we haven’t noticed?”

Now he’s actually nonplussed. “Noticed what?”

“How…” She seems to be searching for a word. “How angry you’ve been since the accident.”

Fear is icy cold, like tendrils of spectral energy trailing down through his chest. “I haven’t -”

“Oh, you haven’t been treating us any differently,” Maddie says, those violet eyes not letting him relax for so much as an instant. “But…well, we’d have to be totally oblivious not to have noticed that something’s wrong.”

“Totally oblivious? Like Jack?” As soon as it’s out of his mouth he knows it was the wrong thing to say. It’s too angry, too jealous, too laden with bitterness. And this is Maddie he’s talking to. She’s not about to miss something like that.

“Why are you so upset with Jack?” She finally looks away, just for a fraction of a second, towards the scorch mark on the otherwise pristine white wall.

“Why _wouldn't_ I be?” Again, his laughter sounds hollow and horrible. “It was _Jack_ who rushed through the calculations that made the portal explode. It was _Jack_ who turned it on without making sure everyone was out of the way. Maddie, he could have killed you! And he nearly killed me.” Vlad realizes he’s starting to lose his cool, and takes a deep breath, trying to salvage what’s left of his composure. “But that’s not everything. He’s my best friend, I could forgive him for nearly getting me killed with one of his crazy inventions, but he isn’t even _sorry_.”

Maddie taps a finger thoughtfully against the plate that had recently held cookies. “You know, he feels really awful about everything. But you know Jack. He doesn’t…exactly express himself well, sometimes. And we thought that it might be best if he just gave you some space, to…” She looks like she might say something more, but Vlad has heard enough.

“And _we_ thought? That would be _you and Jack_ , right?” Maddie opens her mouth, but Vlad doesn’t give her time to interrupt. “Well, I’d like to know when that started. Was it before or after I nearly _died_ in front of you? Did you look into each other’s eyes over my sickbed and realize how perfect you two are for each other? Were you even going to wait until the body cooled before going on your first date?”

Maddie stands up, managing to pack into that simple gesture all of the commanding force of a military officer. “ _Vlad Masters_.” She leans across the table toward him, pointing one delicate, slightly shaking finger at him, and Vlad notices that her cheeks are burning red. “Don’t you _ever_ talk to me like that again. _Ever._ And don’t you _dare_ talk like that about your best friend, who has been _agonizing_ over whether you’ll ever be able to forgive him. Especially not to _me_.”

She doesn’t need to tell him. Vlad’s already regretting his outburst, feeling shame push blood to his head until it pulses with a steady throb. Why had he done that? Could he have possibly been more stupid? All right, maybe she was right, maybe he was being too harsh on Jack. Or maybe he was just speaking the truth. Either way, it was the wrong thing to say. Now there’s no chance that Maddie will ever hear out his vows of undying love. And he’ll have to watch his two best – and, if he’s brutally honest with himself, very nearly only – friends live happily ever after. Without him.

God, how he wishes he were anywhere but here right now. He’d give anything to just…not be here. To just disappear…

Maddie’s eyes widen, and she goes from red to white faster than Vlad’s ever seen a human being do so. When she speaks, it’s not a shout, as he’s expecting, but the kind of whisper that you hear when people are scared to break the silence for fear of breaking something else. “Vlad?”

“Wh-what?” There’s something about the way she’s acting that’s infecting him. There’s a chill spreading out from his spine, his heart starting to scurry with anxious anticipation of something awful.

Maddie tries to look calm, but her eyes flick down toward his chest and before she can stop him, he’s looking down.

There’s no one sitting in his chair.

Panic begins to beat against his brain. He holds up a hand, only to watch it fade into translucence, a mere outline against the lab, a slight distortion in the air. And then – gone. He can still feel it, still move it, but to the world there is nothing there.

He meets Maddie’s eyes, and sees his own terror reflected there. “What’s -”

She gasps, and suddenly she isn’t meeting his eyes anymore. She’s still looking straight at him, but her eyes are focused somewhere around his nose. It’s like she can’t actually see him.

“Are you – are you still there?”

She _can’t_. He has just vanished, right before her eyes.

Suddenly, Vlad wants to hear the sound of his own voice, some proof that he’s still there, still real. “Maddie?”

“Where did you go?” She’s trying hard to keep her voice under control, but having trouble.

“I don’t know! I’m still sitting right here, I’m just…not here anymore.” It sounds lame and he bites his tongue. There’s a pause, ripe and heavy and frightening. “Help?”

 _This isn’t right! I didn’t mean_ this! _I want my body back, I don’t want to disappear, I don’t want to –_

It happens quickly, with a feeling not unlike emerging from a swimming pool full of cool water. One minute, his chair is empty, and the next, he’s sitting in it again. Except that he never left it.

Vlad and Maddie sit, watching each other, for what seems like a very long time.

 

“We have to investigate it.”

“For the last time, I don’t want to! It’s probably just…residual effects, it’ll wear off -”

“Residual effects? That are only turning up a week later?”

Vlad doesn’t have an answer for this, so he settles for sulking silently. Maddie, ever perceptive Maddie, looks at his face and apparently decides not to push it. There’s blissful silence for a few seconds.

“At least let’s tell Jack.”

“No!” Vlad realizes Maddie’s giving him the side-eye. “Maddie, you know what he’d make of this.”

She looks at the walls, the floor, her own feet, anywhere but Vlad’s face. “If we explained really carefully -”

“Maddie, even _I’m_ worried that I’m really a -” He can’t quite bring himself to say it. “And I _know_ I’m not dead. Not to mention that I’m nowhere near Jack’s league when it comes to leaping to conclusions. He’d have one of those ecto-guns he’s always doodling built and leveled at my nose before you could say _but we think it might be only temporary_.”

Maddie doesn’t answer, and for a moment the silence is peaceful, until Vlad discovers that not talking about it gives him room to think about it. Which he really doesn’t want to do.

“I still think you should tell him.”

“Maddie, why are you so focused on getting me to tell Jack?”

“Tell Jack what?”

Maddie stops in her tracks, just as they turn the corner. Vlad isn’t paying quite as close attention, and walks right into his best friend. “Jack! Um, we were just arguing over whether or not to tell you…” He can’t think of a good lie in time, and, seeing the warning on Maddie’s face, the total trust on Jack’s, he realizes he doesn’t really want to. “It’s, uh, kind of private.”

“What, so you’re not going to tell me what -”

“Yes, just not _here_ , not in the middle of the hallway. Can we at least go into a classroom or something?”

Jack looks from Maddie’s scowl, to Vlad, and seems to come to some sort of conclusion. “Well, the lab’s usually free.”

 

The lab seems a few degrees colder than usual, and one of the fluorescent bulbs is flickering in its death throes, casting weird shadows across the walls and making even the bright light seem dark.

“Well, it’s definitely pretty creepy down here,” Jack notes, with all of his usual enthusiasm. “It’s the perfect atmosphere for -”

“If you say ‘ghosts’ I will personally make certain that the next cookie you eat tastes absolutely awful,” Vlad warns his friend.

Jack’s eyes widen. “Can you _do_ that?”

“Yes, Jack. It’s called ‘salt’.”

“Oh.” Jack laughs. “So. What did you want to tell me?” He glances at Maddie, and lowers his voice. “Did you finally…y’know…meet a girl?” This is accompanied by so much winking and elbow-nudging that if there had been subtext to pick up on, people in the next room could probably have picked up on it. However, this is Jack Fenton. Vlad is fairly certain that, to Jack Fenton, ‘subtext’ means nothing more than ‘really small writing’.

“No,” Vlad answers.

“Oh well, better luck next time!” Jack booms. Behind him, Vlad could swear Maddie rolls her eyes. “Then what was it really?”

“I -” Vlad starts, and then stops. How do you tell your ghost-obsessed best friend that, after an accident _he_ caused, involving an incredible amount of spectral energy and tearing open of the fabric of reality to allow access to the world of the dead, you suddenly find yourself able to become invisible? “Um.”

Jack’s watching expectantly, and Maddie’s giving him a look that he couldn’t bear to disappoint. But he doesn’t know what to say. Hell, he doesn't even know how to begin. _It’ll be easier if you just get it over with. Just like pulling off a bandaid. One quick yank, and done._ If only Jack would say something unintentionally hilarious, or ask Maddie if she brought cookies, or _something_ to turn their attention away from Vlad. He can’t do this with both of their eyes on him –

This time, he’s ready for it, can feel the faint cold spread through him so quickly it’s gone almost before he notices it. The reaction’s instantaneous as well. Maddie isn’t quite as shocked as she was the first time, but Jack jumps to his feet. “V-Man? Maddie, a ghost’s got Vlad!”

“No, it hasn’t. I’m right here.” Vlad wills himself back into visibility, realizing again as he does so just how weird this all is. He doesn’t have a lot of time to contemplate it, though, before he’s suddenly pinned against the wall by his best friend, knocking the air from his lungs. He only just manages to catch his breath to ask, “Uh, Jack…?”

Jack Fenton, big, amiable, carefree Jack Fenton, is suddenly the most terrifying thing Vlad has seen in his life. “How long have you been impersonating my best friend, ghost?”

“Wha - I _am_ your best friend!” Vlad squirms, but he’s never been able to break one of Jack’s chokeholds, and this is no exception. “If you’d let me explain -”

“Any ghost that takes over my best friend doesn’t deserve a chance to explain.”

Vlad shuts his eyes, and suddenly there’s a feeling like falling backwards through heavy velvet curtains. Which they definitely don’t have in the lab. He cracks open one eye, only to see the plain white wall of the hallway staring blankly back at him.

_What the…?_

He’s not in the lab anymore. But that means he’d have had to -

Vlad reaches out and, apprehensively, presses a palm against the plain white of the wall. Both wall and hand feel fairly solid when they connect. But, then again, his hand looks pretty solid too, and less than five minutes ago it looked like it wasn’t there.

_What’s happening to me?_

Down the hall, a door slams open, and Jack barrels out, with Maddie on his heels. “Vlad! Don’t worry, I’ll save you!”

“Jack, there’s nothing to save me _from_.”

“Be quiet, ghost!”

“Jack?” Maddie asks softly. It’s the kind of ‘softly’ that makes it very clear that ‘loudly and angrily’ is always an option.

“Not now, Maddie, there’s a putrid piece of protoplasm I need to -”

“ _Jack_.”

“What is it?”

“There’s no ghost.”

The look on Jack’s face would be absolutely hilarious if Vlad weren’t still trying not to panic. “But Vlad -”

“Wouldn’t be showing off his ghostly powers to a ghost hunter if he were actually being possessed, would he?”

The matter-of-fact way she says it sends little shivers scuttling about under Vlad’s skin. _Ghostly powers_ , like it’s an everyday thing instead of a big glaring neon sign forever branding him a freak of nature, maybe even a monster, definitely something that isn’t normal and maybe not even _human_ and -

“But -”

“No. Jack, you’ve just managed to terrify and embarrass your best friend over _ghosts_.” She pauses, probably to let it sink in. Vlad could have told her that it wouldn’t do much good, Jack doesn’t see anything absurd about the notion of ghosts at all (unlike the rest of the world), but then Jack puts on that wounded-puppy pout and it occurs to Vlad that maybe Maddie isn’t trying to get him to consider the _ghosts_ ridiculous, but his _behaviour_. Still a lost cause, but slightly more realistic than attempting to get Jack to realize how silly his obsession really is. “I think you owe Vlad an apology.”

“But Maddie -”

“Which is more important to you? Ghosts? Or your friends?”

Jack looks more startled than if she’d slapped him. Vlad thinks he understands why, too. Maddie never publicly disagrees with Jack, never calls him out on his childish behaviour. Not unless it’s something she considers truly important. And there’s nothing she considers more important than her friends.

Which, by extension, means that he and his friendship matter more to her than what Jack thinks of her. Hope wavers limply, feebly, before conceding that yes, this is rather flimsy evidence to base itself on.

Jack is still looking at Maddie like a very lost and confused puppy, and doesn’t seem to be likely to act anytime soon. Maddie shakes her head, and grabs his arms, spinning him around remarkably gently considering that he’s approximately three times her size. “Apology.”

Jack looks back at Maddie, then turns to face Vlad, and blinks.”V-Man? Where’d you go?”

“Nowhere.” As soon as he says it, though, everything falls into place, and he concentrates on becoming visible again. “I totally did that on purpose.” He meant it to be flippant and suave, maybe with a hint of Sean Connery, but instead it comes out sounding rather weak and scared. Appropriate, considering that’s sort of how he feels.

Jack glances back at Maddie, who crosses her arms and narrows her eyes. When he turns back to face Vlad, he’s pouting. “You’re really not a ghost using Vlad as a human meat puppet?”

Even the thought is enough to make Vlad nearly gnaw through his own tongue in horror. “ _No_.”

“Oh.” And then Jack does something very un-Jack-Fenton-like: he stops and thinks about it. “Well, then I probably shouldn’t have called you one.” Another pause, another look back at Maddie, who starts to tap her foot impatiently. “You’re _sure_ you’re not a ghost?”

“No! I am _not_ sure I’m not a ghost! But I _am_ Vlad Masters, and _I don’t know what’s happening to me_!” He doesn’t add ‘and I’m scared and you’re not helping’, partly because it should be obvious, and partly because…well, it _is_ Jack, after all. He’ll feel bad enough about this when he finally gets it through his head, without Vlad adding to it. Probably.

“Oh.” Jack almost seems to deflate, to shrink slightly as he slouches. “Then I probably shouldn’t have called you a putrid piece of protoplasm.”

“No, probably you shouldn’t have.” Vlad’s heart is still racing, like he’s just run a mile, but it doesn’t seem like he’s going to be pounded into any more walls.

“I’m, uh, sorry about that.” Jack scratches the back of his head. “And for slamming you into the wall like that. And calling you a pestilential fragment of post-human consciousness fuelled by leftover emotions.”

“You know, this is really making me feel better about myself,” Vlad grumbles. “Wait. You never called me a – what was that last thing again?”

“Pestilential fragment of post-human consciousness fuelled by leftover emotions? I was pretty proud of that one.” Jack hasn’t stayed deflated for long, and his usual exuberance seems to have returned with a vengeance. “And I didn’t call you that out _loud_.”

“That makes it _so_ much better.”

Jack claps Vlad on the back, a smack that nearly bowls him over. “Hey, we’re still friends, right? Not gonna let a little ectoplasm come between us, right?”

Vlad manages to bite back the multitude of comments he would just love to make. Yes, it would be satisfying to chew Jack out, to shove his failings right in his face and make him see that not everything is just perfect. But some things are more important than revenge, and right now, what Vlad needs more than anything is his best friend.

He still doesn’t trust himself not to say something snarky and angry, though, so he settles for a nod.

“Great!” And just like that, everything is fine again. In Jack’s world, anyway. “So who wants to go get pizza?”

 

They’re stuffed into a booth at the local pizza place, Jack taking an entire seat to himself, Vlad cursing his luck that Maddie, currently seated close enough that their legs occasionally brush under the table, is still too steamed at Jack and too worried about Vlad to enjoy herself. At least, he hopes that’s why she seems so upset. She hasn’t said a word since they left the campus.

It’s strange, somehow, to be doing something so completely normal, when everything is topsy-turvy and so far from normal that it seems more like fiction than reality. It just feels _wrong_ , and Vlad feels strangely conspicuous, as if at any moment the other patrons, obliviously eating their pizza, will look up and go ‘There he is! That’s the freak!’

Jack, of course, hasn’t noticed either of his friends’ distress, and is happily snarfing down slices of pepperoni. Half the pizza’s gone by the time he notices neither Vlad nor Maddie have eaten anything. “What’s up? Are you guys just not hungry?”

Maddie gives him a glare, which he completely ignores, and then sighs and takes a sip of her drink.

“You wouldn’t be very hungry either, if you’d just started vanishing into thin air with no warning and falling through solid walls,” Vlad mutters. But he does snatch a slice of pizza, reasoning that he might as well, before Jack finishes off the entire pie.

Jack pauses, just long enough to swallow. “Actually, I think I’d be more hungry,” he theorizes. “But I eat when I’m worried.”

“And when you’re excited, and lonely, and bored, and sad, and -” Vlad starts to list, and Jack laughs.

“Hey, I like food! That’s why you’re so scrawny, V-Man. You just don’t love food like I do.”

“Or maybe it’s because you eat everything before I get there,” Vlad counters, but there’s no venom in it. Oddly enough, this totally normal banter is making him feel less strange, less like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole.

Jack pouts. “I do not.”

“Oh, really?” Vlad gestures to the half-finished pizza. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Maddie who demolished this pizza all by herself. Was it?” he asks, nudging Maddie’s knee, hoping to draw her into the conversation.

He isn’t expecting her to react the way she does. The worst-case scenario he’d considered was another sigh and lackluster sip of her drink. He isn’t expecting her to whip round, and snap, “I can’t believe you two!”

Vlad meets Jack’s eyes, and finds himself forced to admit that he’s just as clueless as his friend in this case. “What?”

Maddie looks from Vlad to Jack, as if trying to puzzle out a particularly knotty equation, and Vlad can’t help thinking how cute she looks with her eyes narrowed like that. Finally, she shakes her head. “I just don’t understand how you can be joking around like nothing’s happened at all. I was worried sick and you two just think going out and stuffing your faces with pizza will cure everything!”

“To be fair, it’s mostly Jack who’s been doing the face-stuffing,” Vlad starts, and Maddie groans, leaning back against the back of the booth.

“I will never understand you two,” she says. “Jack, not an hour ago you were ready to beat Vlad to a pulp -”

"But there was a ghost -”

Vlad clears his throat; the family sitting beside them has turned to look and he’s feeling horribly scrutinized. “Can we not go over that again? It happened, it’s over, Jack apologized, and I forgive him, can we talk about something else?”

Maddie bites her bottom lip again. “And _you_ act like you want to pretend nothing happened. That nothing’s happening.”

“It _isn’t_ ,” Vlad insists, nettled. “It’s probably...some weird side effect or something, something that’ll wear off. It’s not like I’m a ghost or anything. I mean, I’m still breathing.” His laugh doesn’t come out sounding quite as confident and self-assured as he’d hoped it would, and he hurries to cover it up. “It’s not anything to worry about.”

There’s a wet-sounding _splat_ , and Vlad looks down to see the piece of pizza he’d been holding not five seconds ago lying face-down on his plate, with tomato sauce sprayed out of its sides as if it had just been dropped onto the plate. He’s _sure_ he didn’t let go of it, though.

Maddie’s giving him an oddly penetrative look, and Vlad tries to avoid her eyes.

“ _Probably_ not anything to worry about,” he admits, grudgingly.

“Vlad, that just dropped _through_ your -”

“I know,” he hisses. “Keep it down, please?”

Maddie looks down at the pizza, and then up at Jack, who’s staring at Vlad’s hand as if he’s never seen that particular appendage before. “Um, Jack?” Vlad asks, suddenly feeling apprehensive, half-wishing there was some way he could know what his best friend is thinking. Sure, Jack _said_ he didn’t want a little ectoplasm to come between them, but they’ve spent too much time studying and hunting ghosts for all of those theories to just be pushed aside. They all know that ghosts are just malevolent balls of leftover consciousness, seeking peace or vengeance and not really caring what they do to the humans that get in their way. And now Jack is looking at his best friend and seeing…well, one of _them_.

Vlad just hopes he doesn’t start shouting in the middle of the restaurant.

“This is _so cool_ ,” Jack says, at a volume that’s practically a whisper for him.

“What?”

Jack’s got a big, stupid grin plastered across his face. “My best friend is a real live ghost,” he says, sounding as if he can’t believe his luck.

“Um, Jack, we went over this, I’m not -”

“I wonder what else you can do!” Jack pauses, his eyes getting larger, and Vlad’s about to take advantage of the moment of silence to say that he’s really not comfortable talking about it like this when – “V-Man, I bet you can fly!”

“What? No!” Vlad gestures to himself, half-forgetting for a moment that they’re in the middle of a very public restaurant. “Do I _look_ like I can fly?”

Jack frowns. “You don’t look like you can walk through walls, either.” He waves a piece of pizza like a pointer. “We should do some tests and find out what kind of ghostly stuff you can do!”

It’s fortunate that Maddie interrupts when she does, because Vlad is starting to seriously consider whether or not he can get away with killing his best friend in front of the entire restaurant and somehow making it look like an accident. Although what she has to say is almost worse than Jack’s thoughtless suggestion. “No, what we _should_ do is go to a doctor. We’re all out of our depth here, and who knows what that blast might have done to you? We don’t even have any theories about what spectral energy might do to living beings.”

Well, that’s less than reassuring. Still, Vlad would usually agree with her, and is midway through nodding in acknowledgement of her flawless reasoning when something hits him like a ton of bricks. “Wait. No. No way.”

“Why not?”

“Yeah, are you afraid of hospitals or something, Vladdy?” Jack pauses. “You…aren’t actually afraid of hospitals, right?”

“No,” Vlad sighs. “But if I go to the hospital, if they find out something’s wrong…I don’t have insurance. I’d have to ask my parents for help.”

Understanding dawns on Jack first, for once. “And when they see the doctor’s bill -”

Vlad nods. “Then they start sticking their noses into everything, find out that I got hurt because of our research, and take the golden opportunity to trap me at home while they parade an endless assortment of specialists past me. Or I move out, cut all ties with them, and then have to drop out of school to get a job and support myself. Either way, no more research. No more ghosts. No more…”

He doesn’t have to say it. Jack’s met his parents, although it was only once, never to be repeated. If there was anything they could do to separate the two friends, Mr. and Mrs. Masters would jump on the opportunity like two rich, soulless old tyrants on an exclusive country club membership. And if ‘that bumbling idiot’, as Vlad’s father so eloquently puts it, had caused physical harm to their precious only son? The ink wouldn’t even be dry on the restraining order before Vlad was shipped off to some Ivy League school far, far away from even the slightest mention of Jack Fenton and his precious ghosts. Which would be the absolute worst possible thing that could happen to Vlad. Especially now.

In short, the hospital’s out.

“Wait, hold on. Couldn’t you just, I don’t know, not tell your parents what happened?” Maddie asks, and Vlad would burst out laughing at the absurdity of this suggestion if everything weren’t so horrible. “If they don’t find out, then -”

Maddie, sweet, well-meaning Maddie, clearly has no idea what’s so funny about the suggestion she’s just made. The injured look on her face when he starts laughing is enough to make him stop, almost instantly. “Sorry, Maddie. But there’s a reason why you’ve never met my parents.”

“They can’t be _that_ bad, can they?”

“They’re exactly that bad.” Vlad drags a finger through the splattered tomato sauce on his plate, doodling whorled designs. “They don’t understand that having a lot of money doesn’t make them better than other people. They honestly believe that all this is beneath them – beneath _us_ \- and they don’t understand why it’s so important to me. They can’t comprehend that anyone might _choose_ to go to a state university instead of a massively expensive private school, might _choose_ to live in a cramped little dormitory, might actually be friends with people who _don’t have money._ Their whole lives revolve around dollar signs, and just because mine doesn’t, they think I’m some sort of…disgrace to the family name or something. And they don’t see anything wrong with poking their noses into all of my life, anytime they feel like it, just to try to find some piece of ammo they can use to get me to go back to being their perfect model son!”

Maddie looks a little shocked at this tirade, and Vlad stares down at his pizza. He hadn’t exactly meant for all of that to come out. Thankfully, it’s not just the two of them at the table.

“Vladdy’s parents _are_ real snobs,” Jack agrees, and just like that Maddie’s attention is focused on him with laser precision, to the exclusion of everyone else. “I went over to their place for dinner once. Vlad’s dad asked me what club my parents belonged to, and I said my mom went to a book club sometimes. They never invited me back.”

“Well, you did manage to spill red wine all down the front of my mother’s imported Chanel gown,” Vlad adds, perking up slightly. It is, after all, one of his most treasured memories, and he hardly even feels guilty about that.

“That was an accident,” Jack says, in what is practically a mutter by Jack Fenton standards.

“I know,” Vlad replies, starting to smile despite himself. “But it couldn’t have been more perfect if you’d planned it.”

“I didn’t plan it! I was just so nervous, and you nudged me -”

“Only because you were using the wrong fork.”

“Well, it was for the best.” Jack crosses his arms. “I don’t belong anywhere where there’s a wrong fork to use.”

Maddie shakes her head, but at least now she’s smiling, even if she’s trying unsuccessfully to hide it. “All right, no hospitals then. But we’ve got to do something. You can’t just wait and hope it’ll go away on its own.”

“Why not? That sounds like a perfectly reasonable plan to me.”

“Well,” and Maddie begins to count on her fingers, “there are the possible health risks, the data we could get that could validate or completely transform our theories and maybe get us more funding and back into the lab -”

“What? No! We’re _not_ going to tell anyone about this, right?”

“We don’t have to put ‘and we know because we tested it on our friend and fellow researcher Vlad Masters, who has freaky ghost powers’ in the report,” Jack provides helpfully.

Vlad, sinking down in his seat, suddenly realizes that he’s actually sinking _into_ his seat, and jumps up with a yelp that makes half of the restaurant turn to stare.

“And, of course, maybe we could figure out how to get your powers under control. Or even get rid of them completely,” Maddie finishes, holding up three fingers. “Do you need more reasons?”

“No,” Vlad mutters, sitting back down and resuming his slouch, albeit a little more carefully this time. He wouldn’t want to accidentally fall through the seat again. “Fine. We’ll investigate my ‘powers’.” The word feels totally ridiculous, clumsy, over the top. He feels like he, a grown man, is playing at being a superhero, and out in public where everyone can see him no less. In other words, incredibly, uncomfortably awkward.

“Hey, Vladdy, are you gonna finish that piece of pizza?”

 

They manage to avoid the subject for the rest of the pizza, and afterwards he escapes to the library. He’s never focused so intently on an assignment in his life. When the elbow he’s leaning on suddenly vanishes, making him fall onto his chin with a jarring thump, he sits back up like nothing happened, pretending he doesn’t hear the giggles from the girls at the table next to his, and desperately tries to ignore it until it goes away. Or, rather, comes back. It’s very strange to look down towards what should be (and feels like) a perfectly normal limb and see nothing there.

He’s almost managed to stuff the whole matter to the back of his mind by the time he returns to the dorm room late that night, though. And, of course, that’s when his luck runs out.

Jack is watching something on the little black-and-white portable TV in their dorm room when Vlad walks in. _Ghostbusters_. Figures. He doesn’t even look up as Vlad crosses the little room, drops his books on his desk, and flops face-first across his bed. “Rough day?”

Vlad raises his head just enough so that his voice isn’t muffled by the comforter. “What do you think?”

“Didja get a lot done in the library, at least?”

Vlad doesn’t really want to talk - he’d rather just go to sleep right now and wake up tomorrow and find out it was all a bad dream - but he shifts slightly to face Jack anyway. At least they’re having a normal conversation. “Yeah, I got halfway done that Physics assignment.”

“Wow, it took me a lot longer than four hours to finish half of the Physics assignment.” A tinny jingle begins to emanate from the TV set, and for the first time Jack looks away from it and toward his best friend. “Did anything…you know… _ghostly_ happen?”

So much for normal conversation. Vlad should have known that his luck wouldn’t hold. “No,” he snaps. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”

Jack raises both hands in the universal gesture of ‘I’m backing off you don’t have to get snappy about it’. “Okay, but I don’t get it. I mean, how cool is this? You have superpowers!”

“Don’t.”

Jack repeats it to the room at large, as if he can’t quite believe what he’s saying himself. “You. Have. Superpowers. My best friend is a superhero! And we practically have proof that ghosts do exist and our portal works and - How are you not even a little bit excited?”

“Maybe because _I’m_ the one stuck with the freaky ‘powers’?”

“And what’s so bad about that?”

“What’s so -” He doesn’t finish. Can’t. What do you say to someone who’s so totally determined to miss the point?

“I’m going to bed,” Vlad snaps, grabbing his toothbrush and pyjamas. He tries to ignore the hurt (and slightly bewildered) look Jack gives him as he storms out of the dorm room, heading for the washroom at the end of the hall.

“Don’t you wanna watch this with -”

 _“No_.”

 

Not much later finds Vlad curled up in bed, trying to ignore the sounds of a totally ridiculous battle with an equally ridiculous ghost piping tinnily from the TV set. Jack, having failed to get Vlad to tell him what he’s done wrong, has returned to the movie, but he keeps sneaking worried glances over at his friend when he thinks Vlad isn’t looking.

Vlad doesn’t really care. He’s halfway hoping that he’ll wake up tomorrow and this will all have been some sort of awful fever dream or something. He’ll wake up and all this will never have happened. And he’ll be himself again, normal again, not plagued by ghostly abilities (which are totally unnatural and freaky and weird and just plain _wrong_ and how the hell can a living person even _do_ any of this stuff anyway) or a best friend who can’t – or won’t – understand that Vlad isn’t excited about being some kind of part-ghost _freak_. And who knows if that’s even possible? Maybe he’s not even human anymore, maybe he’s dead and doesn’t even know it, maybe maybe maybe and what if they can’t fix it? What if he’s stuck like this? What if –

Vlad Masters doesn’t cry. Not now, not _ever_.

But one could hardly blame him for nearly biting through his tongue in an effort not to scream.

It’s a long, long time before he falls asleep.


End file.
